Amour Amour (Aerial Ethereal #1)(123)

“I can’t believe you lost!”

“You won!” he rephrases.

I won. My heart somersaults. Which means… “Tattoo or piercing?!”

He runs a hand through his hair, still in disbelief. Nikolai is not the kind of man who’d lose on purpose, even for his girlfriend. This is a true win, one that everyone in the club sees. It’s insane. The whole night.

“Tattoo,” he says.

My smile fades. I have no idea how to ink a tattoo on someone. I could permanently mark him with a messy blob.

He leans into me. “I’ll guide you.” And then he motions for the tattoo gun from someone, and he asks them for another thing—his words lost behind me.

I scan his body, and it takes me a quick second to figure out what I want to draw. Where I want to draw it. At least you’re sober.

Yeah—I’m not sure my sloppy self would tattoo something pretty.

Nikolai passes me…a magic marker. “Draw it first.”

I nod, relaxing at this idea. Without hesitation, I straddle him. On the bar. Whistling—everyone is whistling. Including Camila, who even winks at me and I read her lips: get ‘em, Thora.

Timo is tossing dollar bills at us, and John is muttering things—that I can only assume are variations of this is so stupid and crazy and is that tattoo gun sterile?

Nikolai turns my chin, so that I focus on him, his eyes descending into mine. “What’s it going to be?”

I open my mouth to tell him my plan.

“Show me,” he says.

“You don’t want to know first?” I question.

He shakes his head. “I trust you.”

I am full of life today. Uncapping the marker, I place one hand on his chest, his heart pounding in a drumbeat that matches mine. Deep. Slow. With the other hand, I pinch the marker between two fingers and lean close to his ribcage. In my neatest cursive, I write three small words.

circus is family

His hands rise up my thighs, up to my hips and when he sees what I drew, his face floods with too many emotions to pick apart. Our gazes lock, and the noises around us seem to drown into silence.

“Where did you come from?” he asks again, shaking his head more. In a daze.

I have a better response this time. “Cincinnati, Ohio.”

He breaks into a laugh, and he kisses me, my skin tingling, on fire. His hand warms the back of my neck. And I feel his smile against my lips.

I’m average. I’ve been average most of my life, but there are moments where I feel extraordinary. Invincible. Able to conquer any fear and step outside any box. There is no illusion, no fantasy. I can climb a forty-foot pole. I can fly eighty-feet in the air. I can be taller than tall.

It’s a dream that I’m living.

Every day. With him.





Epilogue


1 Year Later


I shift on an office chair, the wheels squeaking beneath me.

“Sign here.” The shaggy-haired businessman pushes a stack of white papers, flipping it open to a highlighted line. “And all the pages with marks.”

I’ve already spent fifteen minutes reading the papers, so I click my pen and scrawl Thora James in each and every free space. I smile when I reach the last one.

“Is that it?” I ask.

“You’re all done,” he verifies, standing up with me. And then he extends his arm, for me to shake his hand. “We’re ecstatic to have you, Thora.” He’s reiterated this sentiment a few times since I entered the office, praising me with more and more compliments.

I almost wonder if they thought I wouldn’t sign. “Two more years,” I say with a bigger smile. Two more years in Amour. It’s the longest-term contract they could offer me.

“Twelve more years,” he rephrases, shaking my hand like we did it.

It’s the first time I’ve ever met him: the creator of Aerial Ethereal. I absorb his words twelve more years. Meaning—he plans to keep me around, in this same act, for maybe that long. It’s more than I expected coming in here today. I was just happy that The Masquerade bought Amour for another twelve years, their contract signed and sealed last week.

“Thank you,” I say, my smile stretching. My eyes burn. Don’t cry.

“Take care of yourself now,” he tells me as I head outside of the office, not into the gym but into the carpeted hotel hallway.

Nikolai leans against the wall, in workout clothes, his bandana rolled over his forehead. I decide to play a trick on him, knowing he’ll try to read my features before he asks me what happened.

I wear a morose expression, my lips downturned and shoulders curved.

He straightens the moment he sees me. “They gave you a year,” he assumes.

I shake my head, layering on the distress. His features darken, thinking I’ve been denied a contract.

And then he strides past me, to storm into the office. I expected him to use his words on me before using them on the creator of Aerial Ethereal.

“Whoa…Nik.” I grab his wrist and yank him backwards, strong enough that he stumbles some.

“This is—”

“Two years,” I cut him off, my heart pounding, a large smile replacing my frown. “I have two more years.”

The realization hits him. “That wasn’t funny.”